The First Nova I See Tonight by Jason Kilgore (the false prince .txt) 📕

and the Heart. The Heart was now out of his reach. He pressed frantically at the contact on the dais, but the dais continued upward.

The comet shook again as another massive impact echoed through it. One of the Saffron Guard lost his balance and fell, his head slipping through the gap between the dais and the ceiling. Too late to pull back, he was caught against the ceiling as the dais raised inexorably upward. He screamed, his voice keening upward, then sudden silence as, with a screech of plastisteel armor and wet rip of tissue, the dais decapitated him. The helmeted head banged to the floor and rolled to Yiorgos's feet with splatters of purple blood flung in a circle from the neck. Purple blood gushed from the hole in the ceiling until the iris closed with a metallic scrape.

Dirken and Yiorgos backed up to one another and appraised their situation. All of the Saffron Guard had gone with their master. Eow opened her eyes and approached them. Off to the side, Dimitri and three other guards blocked the exit out the doorway that they had entered through. Dirken saw the Morlani interpreter and a couple of Grimmag's slaves were running down the hall behind the dais and through the reinforced door and decided that was the easiest escape. The Gogonoian flapped and waddled right behind them, uttering shrieks that echoed from the tunnel beyond the door. Yet the albino human singer remained behind the dais, lyrophone in hand, eyes intently watching Dirken.

The red door closed behind the Gogonoian.

Dirken fired at the guards. The shot hit a Pleiadean guard square in the chest, felling him immediately. He fired again, but the comet shook again and the shot went wild as Dirken struggled to keep his footing.

Dimitri and the Reptiloc fired their pulse rifles in response, narrowly missing Dirken's head. Yiorgos responded by leaping forward and slicing the Reptiloc's rifle in half. The weapon exploded with blue and red flame, throwing both of them back. The Reptiloc hit the floor with a whack and a groan, tried to rise, but then passed out.

Eow slapped Dimitri's arm. "Do not shoot toward the Heart, you idiot!" She pointed toward Yiorgos. "Shoot at him!"

Dirken took advantage of the momentary disruption and grabbed Yiorgos, pulling him as he ran under the raised dais and toward the back door. The cyborg fired off several bolts from his mini-blaster, but Dirken didn't turn to see if he'd hit. The dais was coming back down.

"This way!" the albino musician shouted, waving them toward the red door, then turned and led the way, glancing back to make sure they followed. "I know a back passage to the hangar." She spoke with a Terran dialect Dirken couldn't quite place. One of those far northern regions?

Dirken turned and fired a shot, narrowly missing Eow as she rushed through the tunnel entrance with Dimitri.

"Why should we trust you?" Yiorgos said to the albino. "You're a servant of Grimmag!"

"Because I am foremost a servant of a greater power."

"What power?"

But before she could answer, they came to the closed red door. The albino typed a code into an interface, but it was too late. Eow and Dimitri caught up to them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ALBINO

"Leave the Heart and we'll let you go," Eow growled. Her amethyst eyes burned into Dirken's with murderous intent as she stalked forward, brandishing her long claws.

"You know I won't," Dirken replied. He leveled his blaster at her, but she didn't seem to care. He knew he should pull the trigger, but something stopped him.

Dimitri fired at Yiorgos at the same moment Yiorgos fired his mini-blaster, each hitting the other in a flash of light. But before Dirken could check on his partner, Eow leaped at him.

He fired his blaster but missed her as he ducked, her claws sweeping only millimeters from his face.

He turned and kicked her in the gut. She flew back against the tunnel wall with a grunt, her back hitting the control panel. Lights flashed on the interface. The doors stopped opening. Too narrow to slip through.

She recovered in an instant and leaped forward, deftly turning in midair and kicking the blaster out of Dirken's hand. The weapon flew through the narrow opening of the reinforced doors and skidded across the floor on the other side, out of reach.

Dirken raised an arm and deflected a blow, blocking her at the wrist. She swung around again. Her legs wrapped around his neck, threw him to the ground, his neck squeezed between her furry thighs. He let go of the duffel bag and tried to pry her off of him. Struggled to breathe.

Eow smiled, her pointy teeth glistening in a maddened grin as she raised an arm to slash at his face.

But she paused, her smile faltering.

The albino swung her lyrophone and slammed it into the back of Eow's head, the instrument squawking with a metallic twang. Eow emitted a pained yelp and fell off of Dirken. He coughed and turned over to look at Yiorgos.

His partner was against the wall, his saber arm mangled and blackened, blasted apart. Pained, Yiorgos raised his mini blaster toward Dimitri.

Dimitri was bleeding from a blaster wound to his right ribs, but he raised his pulse rifle again.

The dented lyrophone flew over Dirken's head and hit Dimitri in the chest. The Martian's shot went wide, hitting the ceiling. Then Yiorgos fired. The blast hit Dimitri in the head, exploding his cranium in a rain of blood and brain matter from his right temple.

The dais had now lowered enough for Dirken to see half a dozen Saffron Guards bending down to look through the gap. They aimed, but didn't fire, with Eow in the way.

Dirken looked up at the albino, whose attention had turned to the Heart.

"Thanks," he said.

But she had hardly turned to look at him when they heard a crazed wail.

Eow leaped up and grabbed the albino, slamming her against the doors. "You bitch!" Eow yelled.

The albino was